Directed by Fulvio Risuelo
Risuelo’s first feature, Guarda in Alto (Look Up) was a well-received surreal adventure using the rooftops of his native Rome as a mad and beguiling playground. A more intimate and sinister night time Rome is the real star of this, his second feature, made on a shoestring and over a very short time period, both a taut peril-infused thriller and an intimate and touching portrait of an unlikely relationship.
When shy and shuffling Tarek (newcomer Yothin Clavenzani), child of immigrants, misses his train on his way to spend the evening watching football with his friends and walks instead, he reluctantly agrees to stop off at the park to pick up a bit of weed to make the evening go with a swing. There he’s hauled up by an off-duty policeman (Edoardo Pesce), who cuffs him and threatens him with arrest, then instead embarks on a night time of random driving around the city – echoes of Scorsese’s After Hours – showing increasing signs of instability. His mood switches from unstable menace and recklessness through playfulness to what amounts to an intense need of another human to talk to. He is clearly deeply disturbed, and Tarek, after futile attempts to escape, sits it out with an increasing mixture of concern and stoicism, growing in moral stature as the policeman disintegrates. There’s always another shock around the corner, building up acute apprehension, curiosity, violence and even humour as this self-described Don Quixote and Sancho Panza ride the night in Roman backstreets as beguiling and scruffy-tender as Passolini’s in Mama Roma. It can’t end well.
It’s a pity there weren’t more people to see this impressive film on the second night of Cinema Made in Italy, but the intimacy of the small Studio cinema downstairs at Ciné Lumière was unexpectedly suited to the acute sense of danger and the humanity of two troubled lives. A spirited Q&A with the amicable Edoardo Pesce, lead actor and friend of the director gave us more insights into the making of the film and the nature of the director with his determination to maintain a fresh and independent voice in Italian cinema.
A seat in the dark 
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